>> this is "bbc world news america," reporting from washington. africa possibly worse food crisis in decades threatens millions. the youngest victims are paying the highest price. >> the doctors are working to save as many lives as they can. too more often they have to register the names in the clinic possible death book. death book. >> has anyone been safe from the phone hacking? the phones of dead soldiers have been targeted. we hear from one nasa there -- we hear from one nasa veteran there from the start.

welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and also around the globe. aid agencies have issued an urgent appeal for the millions of people affected by drought in africa. this has been particularly cruel to parts of kenya, somalia, ethiopia. more than 300,000 people have walked days to get to a refugee camp in kenya. our correspondent has been there all week and he reports for us tonight. >> among the refugees at this camp, there are hundreds of lost children and orphans. some got separated from their families on the long walk from somalia. others like these children, no longer have any parents. their father died in the civil war. their mother was killed last month.

>> it is better here because back in somalia there was war. we have no relatives there so we fled here. we now have a foster mother to look after us. >> in the hospital, these children have parents but precious little else. drought and war mean that their bodies have been horribly weakened by malnutrition. by the time they reach this clinic, it can be too late. the doctors are working frantically to save as many lives as they can but too often, they have to register the names of the patients here in the clini's death book. the children who died have been entered here. on some days, two or three days will lose their fight. a variety of illnesses and diseases but the report is

always chronic malnutrition. this child is one year old. so frail that like many of the children here, he is causing doctors serious concern. >> we need food, water, medicine, shelter, and everything else that a human being needs. we are never going back to somalia. >> hospital staff told me that they are under resourced and under stretched and they need the world to help. a donkey-drawn cart is the makeshift and in this to bring in fresh casualties to this hospital. it is not only the children but also the elderly are vulnerable to malnutrition. this is killing old and young alike. it might sound strange but aid workers here in this camp say the people who are here are comparatively well-off. they have basic supplies of food and water and medicine.

beyond this camp, there is something like 9 million or 10 million people affected by this drought and many of them have not had any help at all. >> for more on this growing crisis, i spoke earlier with a senior emergency adviser with safe for children. there are so many more people outside of these refugee camps. how much worse this is prices have the potential to get? >> people are traveling from a long distance. this has been an ongoing situation. this is not rapidly on said. people have been suffering for some time. the numbers can increase dramatically. >> in the refugee camp, do they have with a need? >> they are being serviced but those supplies and things that they need are limited and knees to increase. obviously, the numbers are the biggest problems we are facing. >> what kind of numbers are you

looking at? we are talking about huge numbers of people who are in need of help. >> that's right. if we look at the situation in kenya, the somali population moving across, we are looking at three and a half million >> the problem has been drought and civil war, the combination of the two? >> this is a lethal combination. the situation of people crossing an international border is there would be mechanisms normally in place to support the population. they have to take a very long trek to turn around and reach some kind of support. >> today they got together and issued an appeal for help. what is it that you need most immediately? >> any funding that is possible is what we need to carry out the activities. the biggest thing is being able to supply water, to treat

malnutrition. at the moment, coming into these camps, it is as high as 45%. obviously, other food supplies and medical needs to be able to treat the disease is that come along with malnutrition such as diarrhea. >> what is the time frame? how soon do you need to get help to these people? >> this situation has been ongoing. there have been alarm bells going off last september. we are behind the curve. we need to get these medicines, food, water in immediately otherwise the situation will turn catastrophic. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> just a day after she took on one of the most important jobs in world finance, the new head of the international monetary fund, christine lagarde, has stressed the global challenges.

she will have to tackle the debt crisis in europe. she would like to put her own stamp on the imf following the resignation of her predecessor, dominique strauss-kahn. >> christine lagarde is the first synchronized swimmer to become head of the imf and also the first woman. in other respects, she is not a novelty at all. she is a european, like every other managing director before her. >> i don't see myself nor do i feel specifically french or european. i feel a member of the entire community. >> there are 187 members of the imf. there has been 11 managing directors. five of them have been french. is it something in the wind that makes french people particularly good at running ims? >> that gives us a longevity.

"she spent half a first school days at this private school and outside of washington. she made her name as a lawyer working for a u.s. legal firm. this all goes down very well with the americans. most imf officials are economists. she is not. she was the first woman to chair a u.s. law firm. friends say that makes her more than ready to run the fund. she also lost her predecessor was arrested on sexual assault charges, which might be dropped. >> you don't have the director leave without suffering as a result. >> she thinks that the crisis in europe could have been reached -- could have been done better. >> we will have to reach everyone. >> including investors?

>> private sector, international institution that, if they will participate. it will have to be comprehensive and cohesive and not -- as sometimes has been the case. >> experts say that you can view her experience as the french finance minister two ways. what she knows all the players and she knows that landscaped and can operate in that environment quite effectively. others say that she is part of the problem and that impairs her ability. i believe that where you stand depends on where you sit. sitting at the head of the imf will shape of her views and we will see a different christine lagarde. >> governments often need to the imf to be the outsider. christine lagarde has to prove that she can take that approach in europe even though just a few days ago she was negotiating on the other side.

>> in other news, and powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the islands northeast of new zealand. this triggered tsunami warnings. the south korean city of pyeongchang has been chosen to host the winter olympics in 2018 this will be the first city in asia outside of japan to host the winter olympics. in london, the phone hacking scandal which has embroiled the "news of the world," and has brought a political firestorm. "the daily telegraph," reports that soldiers killed in the afghan war might have been had their phone -- might have had their phones tapped. >> it gets worse.

the families of soldiers killed have been warned that their phones might have been hacked. >> my mind went back to 2005. there was emotional turmoil in the state that we were in. somebody was listening to them. this is a violation. >> also on the list of targets, the parents of holly and jessica. of course, the girl whose parents were given false hope that she was still alive when her voice messages were deleted after fung was allegedly attacked by a private investor -- investigator. the prime minister arrived from afghanistan into the storm. >> we need to have an inquiry, possibly inquiries into what has happened. we are no longer talking about

politicians and celebrities. we're talking about murder victims, potentially terrorist victims, having their phones tapped into. >> what happened in the newsroom of the news of the world is already being investigated by 50 police officers. now there will be inquiries into why the police took so long to take this seriously. what is wrong with the british media? this all began with the imprisonment four years ago of the upload news of the world," royal editor. also in prison was this man. >> due to legal constraints, the state of coming home or come in at the moment. >> it is his notes of private phone numbers that have fueled this dog up. that and the mounting anger of mps who have said that police do not want to investigate what he has done. rupert murdoch issued a

statement describing what had happened as deplorable and unacceptable. he stated that "our company must fully cooperate with the police and said that what happened under rebekah brooks' leadership." she was editor of the "news of the world," at the time some of the hacking. she was apparently away at the time. murdoch's enemies have long claimed that whoever is in power is the real puppet master. tonight, he, they, no one knows how this will end. >> joining me now from london is the deputy prime minister went tony blair was in power. 45 of his mobile phone messages were hacked into.

this is a very sorry tale. it goes back to 2006 when your own messages were broken into. how evasive was that? >> the police kept in mind that that was so. i had to go to the court and force them to commit and setup a new inquiry. that is finding all of disinformation. the information was available before. why didn't the police act on it instead of the nine that my phone messages had been broken into? now we are learning the appalling situation of the phone's not only having messages on them, the girl found that not only were they wiped off, they were wiped off by the news of the world to add more information so they could get more stories so the man to sell it to the press. that is murder of's press.

-- murdoch's press. he is now backing rebecca brooks. she is doing the inquiry. she was the editor. >> are we dealing with this situation both here and the u.s. where the murdoch news empire is very powerful as well and back there and britain, politicians are simply too scared to confront the murdoch empire? >> a british company could not go and buy anything more than 20%, he has 30% of british sky. it is been argued that he has far too much power and they assume that his papers decide whether they will become the prime minister or the next government. that is totally unacceptable. >> it was your former boss who

was one of the first to cozy up to rupert murdoch. >> if you ask him, and you can ask gordon brown. they used to be played up funny enough by rebecca brooks. they have far too much influence and they have produced this kind of scandal and it must top. >> are you confident that this will stop now that the public is so outraged by who else has been hacked? >> the public is rightfully outraged by this. there is a failure by the commission. the police have been cozying up. you can be assured that parliament would like a piece of this and across the party lines. we have to do something about the media moguls like mr. murdoch who are saying that everything will be adjusted by rebecca brooks.

it is like giving too figures to us. she should go and go now. >> board pressed outcome of the former deputy prime minister of britain. -- lord press got -- we look back at the shuttle launches that defined the last three decades. bbc journalists have held another vigil in london today demanding the release of their colleague, a radio reporter who was detained by authorities in tajikistan. he was ooriginally charged with being a member of a banned organization. the charges have been dropped. we report on the background of

the story and the most recent calls for action by his colleagues. >> we don't believe the allegations. >> everyone is astonished that a professional journalist can be arrested simply for talking to members of an islamist organization. what has happened to our colleague, was this part of a wider campaign by the authorities against anyone suspected of having any links whatsoever with islamist groups? the answer lies in the growing number of people drawn to islamic organizations in tajikistan. this organization would like an islamic caliphate established across central asia through peaceful means. in some areas, the military has launched operations in recent years against other militant groups which are armed and are

alleged to have links to al qaeda and the taliban in afghanistan. the security forces claim success. alongside these operations have been many arrests of people on the flimsiest of grounds. so, the people of this traditional muslim country could be pushed into the arms of radical groups by the government's own heavy-handed tactics. and by the continuing policy of corruption with lights their lives. -- blights their lives. >> it was billed as an automobile -- as an awesome deal. facebook is launching a video chat service which will be provided by skype. for more on what this means for the industry, i spoke earlier from san francisco with the editor at large with c-net.

what does this mean that you will be able to do on facebook that you could not do before? >> pretty simply it means that if you looking at a vista of your friends on facebook, there is now a simple click to have a video chat with them using the skype software that you used to have to leave facebook to use. now, you can do a skype video chat or call without leaving facebook. this is big for facebook. this is not so revolutionary for the users. >> are these the kind people that actually want to have video chat and video conferences? i thought that was more of a work scenario. >> with any audience, this kind of a video chat behavior is for the minority of your interactions because if you are in a certain place, once you

introduce visual and audio cues, you have to have a controlled environment. i cannot have a video chat with you while i'm on the bus. this is by definition a rich interface for a minority of your communications. nonetheless, they spoke with like this to happen within facebook and not have you leave facebook and have you use your skype program. >> one thing that seems to be clear is that the business side, this comes in the same week that google has announced its social network is try to take on facebook as well. who was winning that battle? >> if you measure this on sheer numbers, no one touches facebook. during the announcement, they mentioned they have 750 million users. that is a big jump from the last time we checked in. this is a big number. now, you have to will try to

come from behind. the nearest possible number you could say is that google has 240 million users of t mail. if they could convert all of us to use the new google plus, they would be trailing dramatically. on sheer numbers, google has a lot of catching up to do. >> we have not mentioned microsoft yet. is microsoft the kind of secret winner in all of this? >> well, it depends on how they handle spec. the skype acquisition is still under review. we expect it will go through. only then will we know on what microsoft will do to improve or potentially screwup skype. the history on this is 5050. until we know what microsoft will do with skype and how they might handshake on that the facebook with deeper integration, it is kind of hard to say. we were disappointed by how i

interesting this facebook announcement was. what they have done is to play catch up, they have not moved the ball forward. >> thank you very much for talking to us. >> thank you. >> now, to florida, where all eyes are on the skies to see if the weather will cooperate for the final launch of the space shuttle. this will be a bittersweet moment. we will have one member of the space program who has reveled in his duty. >> i just retired after 45 years representing the kennedy space center. >> the shuttle has cleared the tower. >> all of the launches that i've seen have been exciting. this is a magnificent flying machine. you sit there and all even though you have worked on them and seeing them for so many years. -- use it to you sit there in a.

i worked on the air system as applied to control the air for the apollo aircraft. it was very upsetting. everyone that work there was exciting to be there. i was lucky enough to be chosen to work on the lunar rover. the first vehicle did not have any american flags. they sent it back and ask for five. i carefully placed four on the fenders. they wanted us to autograph a spare. this was the front and back. i have that flag. i am very proud of it. these pictures were signed by the crews because we supported them. if you are capable of having these things and you cherish them very much.

the space shuttle program is an exciting time. it has been 30 years. this has been part of so many people's lives and has been such a stellar program for this nation. like everyone out there, you hate to see it come to an end. this is such an honor to have such a successful program. part of my career at the kennedy space center. i feel very lucky that i have had such a magnificent career. i feel very lucky to have been in that line of work. i could have retired at an earlier age but i did not want to. this is like family. >> he is remembering his years there at nasa. from all of us here at bbc world news america, thank you for watching.

>> make sense of international news at bbc.com/news. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. and union bank. .. >> union bank has put its global financial strength to work for a wide range of companies.

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